The Kabbalah: its doctrines, development, and literature

by Christian D. Ginsburg

III.

It now remains for us to describe the development of the Kabbalah, to point out the different schools into which its followers are divided, and to detail the literature which this theosophy called into existence in the course of time. The limits of this Essay demand that this should be done as briefly as possible.

The great land mark in the development of the Kabbalah is the birth of the Sohar, which divides the history of this theosophy into two periods, viz., the pre-Sohar period and the post-Sohar period. During these two periods different schools developed themselves, which are classified by the erudite historian, Dr. Graetz, as follows:—[1]

I.—THE SCHOOL OF GERONA, so called from the fact that the founders of it were born in this place and established the school in it. To this school, which is the cradle of the Kabbalah, belong

1. Isaac the Blind (flour. 1190–1210), denominated the Father of the Kabbalah. His productions have become a prey to time, and only a few fragments have survived as quotations in other theosophic works. From these we learn that he espoused the despised doctrine of metempsychosis as an article of creed, and that from looking into a man’s face, he could tell whether the individual possessed a new soul from the celestial world of spirits, or whether he had an old soul which has been migrating from body to body and has still to accomplish its purity before its return to rest in its heavenly home. [[190]]

2. Azariel and Ezra, disciples of Isaac the Blind. The former of these is the author of the celebrated Commentary on the Ten Sephiroth, which is the first Kabbalistic production, and of which we have given an analysis in the second part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 176). Of Ezra next to nothing is known beyond the fact that his great intimacy with Azariel led some writers to identify the two names.

3. Jehudah b. Jakar, a contemporary of the foregoing Kabbalists. No works of his have survived, and he is only known as the teacher of the celebrated Nachmanides and from being quoted as a Kabbalistic authority.

4. Moses Nachmanides, born in Gerona about 1195, the pupil of Azariel, Ezra, and Jehudah Ibn Jakar. It was the conversion of this remarkable and famous Talmudist to this newly-born Kabbalah which gave to it an extraordinary importance and rapid spread amongst the numerous followers of Nachmanides. It is related that, notwithstanding all the efforts of his teachers, Nachmanides at first was decidedly adverse to this system; and that one day the Kabbalist who most exerted himself to convert him was caught in a house of ill fame and condemned to death. He requested Nachmanides to visit him on the Sabbath, being the day fixed for his execution; and when Nachmanides reproved him for his sins, the Kabbalist declared that he was innocent, and that he would appear at his house on this very day, after the execution, and partake with him the Sabbath meal. He proved true to his promise, as by means of the Kabbalistic mysteries he effected that, and an ass was executed in his stead, and he himself was suddenly transposed into Nachmanides’ house. From that time Nachmanides avowed himself a disciple of the Kabbalah, and was initiated into its mysteries.[2] His numerous writings, an account of which will be found in Alexander’s edition of [[191]]Kitto’s Cyclopædia, under Nachmanides, are pervaded with the tenets of this system. In the Introduction to his Commentary on the Pentateuch he remarks—“We possess a faithful tradition that the whole Pentateuch consists of names of the Holy One, blessed be he; for the words may be divided into sacred names in another sense, so that it is to be taken as an allegory. Thus the words—‏בראשית ברא אלהים‎ in Gen. i, 1 , may be redivided into other words, ex. gr. ‏בראש יתברא אלהים‎. In like manner is the whole Pentateuch, which consists of nothing but transpositions and numerals of divine names.”[3]

5. The Treatise on the Emanations (‏מסכת אצילות‎), supposed to have been written by R. Isaac Nasir in the first half of the twelfth century. The following is an analysis of this production. Based upon the passage—“Jaresiah and Eliah and Zichri, the sons of Jeroham” ( 1 Chron. viii, 27 ), which names the Midrash assigns to the prophet Eliah (Shemoth Rabba, cap. xl), this prophet is introduced as speaking and teaching under the four names of Eliah b. Josep, Jaresiah b. Joseph, Zechariah b. Joseph and Jeroham b. Joseph. Having stated that the secret and profounder views of the Deity are only to be communicated to the God-fearing, and that none but the pre-eminently pious can enter into the temple of this higher gnosis, the prophet Elias propounds the system of this secret doctrine, which consists in the following maxims—“I. God at first created light and darkness, the one for the pious and the other for the wicked, darkness having come to pass by the divine limitation of light. II. God produced and destroyed sundry worlds, which, like ten trees planted upon a narrow space, contend about the sap of the soil, and finally perish altogether. III. God manifested himself in four worlds, [[192]]viz.—Atzilah, Beriah, Jetzira and Asiah, corresponding to the Tetragrammaton ‏יהוה‎. In the Atzilatic luminous world is the divine majesty, the Shechinah. In the Briatic world are the souls of the saints, all the blessings, the throne of the Deity, he who sits on it in the form of Achtenal (the crown of God, the first Sephira), and the seven different luminous and splendid regions. In the Jetziratic world are the sacred animals from the vision of Ezekiel, the ten classes of angels with their princes, who are presided over by the fiery Metatron, the spirits of men, and the accessory work of the divine chariot. In the Assiatic world are the Ophanim, the angels who receive the prayers, who are appointed over the will of man, who control the action of mortals, who carry on the struggle against evil, and who are presided over by the angelic prince Synandelphon. IV. The world was founded in wisdom and understanding ( Prov. iii, 19 ), and God in his knowledge originated fifty gates of understanding. V. God created the world by means of the ten Sephiroth, which are both the agencies and qualities of the Deity. The ten Sephiroth are called Crown, Wisdom, Intelligence, Mercy, Fear, Beauty, Victory, Majesty and Kingdom: they are ideal and stand above the concrete world.”[4]

6. Jacob ben Sheshet of Gerona (flour. 1243). He wrote a Kabbalistic Treatise in rhymed prose, entitled ‏שער השמים‎ the Gate of Heaven, after Gen. xxviii, 17 . It was first published by Gabriel Warshawer in his collection of eight Kabbalistic Essays, called ‏ספר לקוטימ בקבלה‎. Warsaw, 1798. It forms the third Essay in this collection, and is erroneously entitled ‏לקוטי שם טוב‎ the Collection of Shem Tob. It has now been published under its proper title, from a codex by [[193]]Mordecai Mortera, in the Hebrew Essays and Reviews, entitled Ozar Nechmad (‏אוצר נחמד‎) vol. iii, p. 153, &c. Vienna, 1860.

The characteristic feature of this school, which is the creative school, is that it for the first time established and developed the doctrine of the En Soph (‏אין סוף‎), the Sephiroth (‏ספירות‎) or Emanations, metempsychosis (‏סוד העבור‎) with the doctrine of retribution (‏סוד הגמול‎) belonging thereto, and a peculiar christology, whilst the Kabbalistic mode of exegesis is still subordinate in it.

II.—THE SCHOOL OF SEGOVIA, so called because it was founded by Jacob of Segovia, and its disciples were either natives of this place or lived in it. The chief representatives of this school are—

1, Isaac, and 2, Jacob, junior, the two sons of Jacob Segovia, and 3, Moses b. Simon of Burgos, who are only known by sundry fragments preserved in Kabbalistic writings.

4. Todras b. Joseph Ha-Levi Abulafia, born 1234, died circa 1305. This celebrated Kabbalist occupied a distinguished position as physician and financier in the court of Sancho IV, King of Castile, and was a great favourite of Queen Maria de Moline; he formed one of the cortége when this royal pair met Philip IV, the Fair, King of France in Bayonne (1290), and his advocacy of this theosophy secured for the doctrines of the Kabbalah a kindly reception. His works on the Kabbalah are—(a) An Exposition of the Talmudic Hagadoth, entitled ‏אוצר הכבוד‎, (b) A Commentary on Ps. xix, and (c) A Commentary on the Pentateuch, in which he propounds the tenets of the Kabbalah. These works, however, have not as yet been printed.[5]

5. Shem Tob b. Abraham Ibn Gaon, born 1283, died circa 1332, who wrote many Kabbalistic works.

6. Isaac of Akko (flour. 1290) author of the Kabbalistic [[194]]Commentary on the Pentateuch, entitled ‏מאירת עינים‎ not yet printed, with the exception of an extract published by Jellinek.[6]

The characteristic of this school is that it is devoted to exegesis, and its disciples endeavoured to interpret the Bible and the Hagada in accordance with the doctrines of the Kabbalah.

III.—THE QUASI-PHILOSOPHIC SCHOOL of Isaac b. Abraham Ibn-Latif, or Allatif. He was born about 1270 and died about 1390. Believing that to view Judaism from an exclusively philosophical stand-point does not shew “the right way to the sanctuary,” he endeavoured to combine philosophy with Kabbalah. “He laid greater stress than his predecessors on the close connection and intimate union between the spiritual and material world, between the Creator and the creation—God is in all and everything is in him. The human soul rises to the world-soul in earnest prayer, and unites itself therewith ‘in a kiss,’ operates upon the Deity and brings down a divine blessing upon the nether world. But as every mortal is not able to offer such a spiritual and divinely operative prayer, the prophets, who were the most perfect men, had to pray for the people, for they alone knew the power of prayer. Isaac Allatif illustrated the unfolding and self-revelation of the Deity in the world of spirits by mathematical forms. The mutual relation thereof is the same as that of the point extending and thickening into a line, the line into the flat, the flat into the expanded body. Henceforth the Kabbalists used points and lines in their mystical diagrams as much as they employed the numerals and letters of the alphabet.[7]

IV. THE SCHOOL OF ABULAFIA, founded by Abraham ben Samuel Abulafia, is represented by— [[195]]

1. Abulafia, the founder of it, who was born at Saragossa in 1240, and died circa 1292. For thirty years he devoted himself to the study of the Bible, the Talmud, philology, philosophy, and medicine, making himself master of the philosophical writings of Saadia, Bachja b. Joseph, Maimonides, and Antoli, as well as of the Kabbalistic works which were then in existence. Finding no comfort in philosophy, he gave himself entirely to the mysteries of the Kabbalah in their most fantastic extremes, as the ordinary doctrine of the Sephiroth did not satisfy him. The ordinary doctrine of the Sephiroth he simply regarded as a ten unity instead of the Christian three unity. Through divine inspiration, he discovered a higher Kabbalah, by means of which the soul can not only hold the most intimate communion with the world-soul, but obtain the prophetic faculty. The simple intercourse with the world of spirits, which is effected by separating the words of Holy Writ, and especially those of the divine name, into letters, and by regarding each letter as a distinct word (‏נוטריקון‎), or by transposing the component parts of words in every possible way to obtain thereby peculiar expressions (‏צירוף‎), or by taking the letters of each word as numerals (‏גמטריא‎), is not sufficient. To have the prophetic faculty and to see visions ought to be the chief aim, and these are secured by leading an ascetic life, by banishing all worldly feelings, by retiring into a quiet closet, by dressing oneself in white apparel, by putting on the fringed garment and the phylacteries; by sanctifying the soul so as to be fit to hold converse with the Deity; by pronouncing the letters composing the divine name with certain modulations of the voice and divine pauses; by exhibiting the divine names in various diagrams under divers energetic movements, turnings, and bendings of the body, till the voice gets confused and the heart is filled with fervour. When one has gone through these practices and is in such a condition, the fulness of the [[196]]Godhead is shed abroad in the human soul: the soul then unites itself with the divine soul in a kiss, and prophetic revelations follow as a matter of course.

He went to Italy, published, in Urbino (1279), a prophecy, in which he records his conversations with the Deity, calling himself Raziel and Zechariah, because these names are numerically the same as his own name, Abraham,[8] and preached the doctrines of the Kabbalah. In 1281 he had a call from God to convert the Pope, Martin IV, to Judaism, for which he was thrown into prison, and narrowly escaped a martyr’s death by fire. Seeing that his Holiness refused to embrace the Jewish religion, Abulafia went to Sicily, accompanied by several of his disciples. In Messina another revelation from God was vouchsafed to him, announcing to him that he was the Messiah, which he published 1284. This apocalypse also announced that the restoration of Israel would take place in 1296; and so great was the faith which the people reposed in it, that thousands prepared themselves for returning to Palestine. Those, however, who did not believe in the Messiahship and in the Kabbalah of Abulafia, raised such a violent storm of opposition against him, that he had to escape to the island of Comino, near Malta (circa 1288), where he remained for some time, and wrote sundry Kabbalistic works.

His Kabbalistic system may be gathered from the following analysis of his Rejoinder to R. Solomon ben Abraham ben Adereth, who attacked his doctrines and Messianic as well as prophetic pretensions. “There are,” says Abulafia, “four sources of knowledge—I, The five senses, or experimental maxims; II, Abstract numbers or à priori maxims; III, The generally acknowledged maxims, or consensus communis; [[197]]and IV, Transmitted doctrines or traditional maxims. The Kabbalistic tradition, which goes back to Moses, is divisible into two parts, the first of which is superior to the second in value, but subordinate to it in the order of study. The first part is occupied with the knowledge of the Deity, obtained by means of the doctrine of the Sephiroth, as propounded in the Book Jetzira. The followers of this part are related to those philosophers who strive to know God from his works, and the Deity stands before them objectively as a light beaming into their understanding. These, moreover, give to the Sephiroth sundry names to serve as signs for recognition; and some of this class differ but little from Christians, inasmuch as they substitute a decade for the triad, which they identify with God, and which they learned in the school of Isaac the Blind.

“The second and more important part strives to know God by means of the twenty-two letters of the alphabet, from which, together with the vowel points and accents, those sundry divine names are combined, which elevate the Kabbalists to the degree of prophecy, drawing out their spirit, and causing it to be united with God and to become one with the Deity. This is gradually effected in the following manner. The ten Sephiroth sublimate gradually to the upper Sephira, called thought, crown, or primordial air, which is the root of all the other Sephiroth, and reposes in the creative En Soph. In the same manner all the numerals are to be traced back to one, and all the trees, together with their roots and branches, are converted into their original earth as soon as they are thrown into the fire. To the ten Sephiroth, consisting of upper, middle and lower, correspond the letters of the alphabet, which are divided into three rows of ten letters each, the final letters inclusive, beginning and ending with Aleph; as well as the human body, with its head, the two arms, loins, testicles, liver, heart, brain, all of which unite into a higher unity and become one in the active νοῦς, which in its [[198]]turn again unites itself with God, as the unity to which everything must return.

“The ten Sephiroth are after a higher conception, to be traced to a higher triad, which correspond to the letters Aleph, Beth, Gimmel, and the three principles combined in man, the vital in the heart, the vegetable in the liver, and the pleasurable in the brain, and also form themselves in a higher unity. It is in this way that the Kabbalist who is initiated into the prophetic Kabbalah may gradually concentrate all his powers direct to one point to God, and unite himself with the Deity, for which purpose the ideas developed in unbroken sequence, from the permutations of numbers and letters, will serve him as steps upon which to ascend to God.”[9]

Abulafia wrote no less than twenty-six grammatical, exegetical, mystical and Kabbalistic works, and twenty-two prophetic treatises. And though these productions are of great importance to the history of the literature and development of the Kabbalah, yet only two of them, viz., the above-named Epistle to R. Solomon and the Epistle to R. Abraham, entitled the Seven Paths of the Law (‏סוע נתיבות התורה‎), have as yet been published.

2. Joseph Gikatilla b. Abraham (flour. 1260), disciple of Abulafia. He wrote in the interests and defence of this school the following works:—i. A Kabbalistic work entitled the Garden of Nuts (‏גנת אגוז‎), consisting of three parts, and treating respectively on the import of the divine names, on the mysteries of the Hebrew letters, and on the vowel points. It was published at Hanau, 1615. ii. The import of the vowel points entitled the Book on Vowels (‏ספר הניקוד‎), or the Gate to the Points (‏שער הניקוד‎), published in the collection of seven treatises, called the Cedars of Lebanon [[199]](‏ארזי לבנון‎), Venice, 1601, and Cracow, 1648, of which it is the third treatise. iii. The Mystery of the Shining Metal (‏סוד החשמל‎), being a Kabbalistic exposition of the first chapter of Ezekiel, also published in the preceding seven treatises, of which it is the fourth. iv. The Gate of Light (‏שער אורה‎), being a treatise on the names of the Deity and the ten Sephiroth, first published in Mantua, 1561; then Riva de Trento, 1561; Cracow, 1600. A Latin version of it by Knorr von Rosenroth is given in the first part of the Kabbala Denudata, Sulzbach, 1677–78. v. The Gates of Righteousness (‏שערי צדק‎), on the ten divine names answering to the ten Sephiroth, published at Riva de Trento, 1561. vi. Mysteries (‏סודות‎) connected with sundry Pentateuchal ordinances, published by Jechiel Ashkenazi in his Temple of the Lord (‏היכל יהוה‎), Venice and Dantzic, 1596–1606.[10]

From the above description it will be seen that the characteristic features of this school are the stress which its followers lay on the extensive use of the exegetical rules called Gematria (‏גמטריא‎), Notaricon (‏נוטריקון‎), and Ziruph (‏צירוף‎), in the exposition of the divine names and Holy Writ, as well as in the claim to prophetic gifts. It must, however, be remarked that in this employment of commutations, permutations and reduction of each letter in every word to its numerical value, Abulafia and his followers are not original.

V. THE SOHAR SCHOOL, which is a combination and absorption of the different features and doctrines of all the previous schools, without any plan or method.

1236–1315. Less than a century after its birth the Kabbalah became known among Christians through the restless efforts of Raymond Lully, the celebrated scholastic metaphysician and experimental chemist. This Doctor illuminatus, as he was styled, in consequence of his great learning and [[200]]piety, was born about 1236 at Palma, in the island of Majorca. He relinquished the military service and writing erotic poetry when about thirty, and devoted himself to the study of theology. Being inspired with an ardent zeal for the conversion of the Mohammedans and the Jews to Christianity, he acquired a knowledge of Arabic and Hebrew for this purpose. In pursuing his Hebrew studies Lully became acquainted with the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and, instead of converting his Kabbalistic teachers, he embraced the doctrine of “the identity of the Deity and nature;”[11] and there is very little doubt that the Kabbalistic method of palming their notions on the text of Scripture, by means of the Gematria, Notaricon and Ziruph, suggested to him the invention of the Great Art (Ars Magna). It is therefore not to be wondered at that he had the loftiest conception of the Kabbalah, that he regarded it as a divine science and as a genuine revelation whose light is revealed to a rational soul.[12] It cannot be said that Lully derived as much benefit from the Mohammedans, for after making three perilous journeys to Africa to bring the sons of Ishmael to the truth of Christianity, he was stoned to death by them, June 30, 1315.

The new era in the development of the Kabbalah, created by the appearance of the Sohar, has continued to the present day, for nearly all those who have since espoused the doctrines of this theosophy have made the Sohar their text-book, and the principal writers have contented themselves more or less with writing commentaries on this gigantic pseudonym.

1290–1350. Foremost among these is Menahem di Recanti, who was born in Recanti (Latin Recinetum) about 1290. He wrote, when about forty years of age (1330), a commentary [[201]]on the Pentateuch, which is little else than a commentary on the Sohar. This commentary—which was first published by Jacob b. Chajim in Bomberg’s celebrated printing establishment, Venice, 1523, then again, ibid., 1545, and in Lublin, 1595—has been translated into Latin by the famous Pico della Mirandola.[13]

1320. At the beginning of the fourteenth century Joseph b. Abraham Ibn Wakkar (flour. 1290–1340) endeavoured to reconcile this theosophy with philosophy, and to this end wrote a Treatise on the cardinal doctrines of the Kabbalah, which is regarded as one of the best if not the best introductory compendium. This production, which is unpublished, and a MS. of which exists in the Bodleian Library (Codex Land. 119; described by Uri No. 384), consists of four parts or Gates, subdivided into chapters, as follows:—

Gate I, which is entitled, On the views of the Kabbalists respecting the Primary Cause, blessed be he, and the Sephiroth, as well as their names and order, consists of eight chapters, treating respectively on the fundamental doctrines of the emanations of the Sephiroth from the First Cause, as transmitted from Abraham and indicated in the Bible and the Rabbinic writings in Gematrias (cap. i); on the unity of the Sephiroth (cap. ii); the relation of the Sephiroth to each other, the First Cause itself being a trinity consisting of a threefold light, the number of the Sephiroth being from 10, 20, 30 and so on up to 310, stating that there is a difference of opinion amongst the Kabbalists whether the Primary Cause is within or without the Sephiroth (cap. iii); on the three worlds of the Sephiroth (cap. iv); on the beginninglessness of the first and necessary first Emanation, investigating the question as to how many Sephiroth this property extends (cap. v); on [[202]]the subordination and order of the Sephiroth and the diagrams, mentioning, in addition to the three known ones, the figure of bridegroom and bride under the nuptial canopy (cap. vi); on the names of the Deity and the angels derived from the Sephiroth (cap. vii); on the unclean (demon) Sephiroth or Hells (‏קליפות‎) and their relation to the pure ones (cap. viii).

Gate II, which is entitled, On the influence of the Sephiroth on the government of the world (Providence), consists of six chapters, treating respectively on the relation of the Sephiroth to the fundamental characteristics of Providence, such as mercy, justice, &c. (cap. i); on the corresponding relations of the unclean Sephiroth (cap. ii); on the influence of the Sephiroth on men, especially on the Hebrew race, and their vicissitudes (caps. iii and iv); on the possibility of the Sephiroth withholding this influence (cap. v); and on the relation of the Sephiroth to the days of the week (cap. vi).

Gate III, which is entitled, On the names of the Sephiroth among the Kabbalists, and which is the most extensive part of the work, consists of seven chapters, treating respectively on the names of the Deity, giving the sundry explanations of ‏אהיה אשר אהיה‎ current among the Jewish philosophers (cap. i); on the names of the Sephiroth, stating that there is no uniform principle among the Kabbalists; that the appellations are derived from the Bible, the Talmud and later literati; that the greatest difference of opinion prevails among the Kabbalists as to the mode in which these ancient sources are to be interpreted, recommending the following works as reliable guides: the Talmud, Midrash Rabboth, Siphra, Siphri, Bahir, Perakim of R. Eliezer, the opinions of Nachmanides and Todros Ha-Levi Abulafia of honoured memory, but guarding against the Sohar, because “many blunders occur therein” (cap. ii); on the import of the names of the Sephiroth, with examples of interpretation of the Bible and Talmud [[203]]to serve as aids for the student who is to prosecute the work according to these examples, mentioning three explanations of the word Sephira (cap. iii); on the divine names occurring in the Pentateuch (cap. iv); on the masculine and feminine nature of the Sephiroth (cap. v); this is followed (cap. vi) by an alphabetical dictionary of the names of the Sephiroth, giving under each letter the Biblical and the corresponding Talmudic appellation appropriated by the Kabbalists to the Sephiroth; and (cap. vii) by an index of the names of each Sephira in alphabetical order without any explanation.

Gate IV, which is entitled On the positive proofs of the existence of the Kabbalah, describes the author’s own views of the Kabbalistic system, and submits that the Kabbalist has a preference over the philosopher and astronomer by virtue of the acknowledged maxim that he has a thorough knowledge of a thing who knows most details about it. Now the Kabbalists build their system upon the distinction of words, letters, &c., &c., in the sacred writings; and they also explain certain formularies among the Rabbins, which have undoubtedly a recondite sense.[14]

1370–1500. During the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries the Kabbalah took deep root in Spain. Its followers, who were chiefly occupied with the study of the Sohar, with editing some older works, and with writing Kabbalistic commentaries on the Bible, became more and more aggressive, denouncing in unmeasured terms their co-religionists who could not see the advantages of this secret doctrine. Thus Abraham b. Isaac of Granada—who wrote (1391–1409) a Kabbalistic work entitled The Covenant of Peace, discussing [[204]]the mysteries of the names of God and the angels, of permutations, commutations, the vowel points and accents—declares that he who does not acknowledge God in the manner of the Kabbalah sins unwittingly, is not regarded by God, has not his special providence, and, like the abandoned and the wicked, is left to fate.[15]

Similar in import and tone are the writings of Shem Tob Ibn Shem Tob (died 1430). In his Treatise, entitled the Book of Faithfulness, which is an attack on the Jewish philosophers Ibn Ezra, Maimonides, Levi b. Gershon, &c., and a defence of the Kabbalah, Shem Tob denounces the students of philosophy as heretics, and maintains that the salvation of Israel depends upon the Kabbalah. He also wrote Homilies on the Pentateuch, the Feasts and Fasts, &c., in which the Kabbalistic doctrines are fully propounded.[16]

Moses Botarel or Botarelo, also a Spaniard, wrote at this time (1409) his commentary on the famous Book Jetzira, an analysis of which is given in the foregoing part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 147, &c.) Unlike Abraham of Granada and Shem Tob, his two contemporary champions of the Kabbalah, he praises philosophy, speaks of Aristotle as of a prophet, and maintains that philosophy and the Kabbalah propound exactly the some doctrines, and that they only differ in language and in technical terms. In this commentary, which he wrote to instruct the Christian scholar Maestro Juan in the Kabbalah, Botarel shows how, by fasting, ablutions, prayer, invocation of divine and angelic names, a man may have such dreams as shall disclose to him the secrets of the future. In confirmation of his opinions he quotes such ancient authorities as Rab Ashi, Saadia Gaon, Hai Gaon, &c., whom the Kabbalah claims as its great [[205]]pillars.[17] It is almost needless to remark that these men lived long before the birth of the Kabbalah, and that this mode of palming comparatively modern opinions upon great men of remote ages, has also been adopted by advocates of other systems who were anxious to invest their views with the halo of antiquity.

As countrymen of the foregoing writers, and as exponents of the opinions of older Kabbalists, are to be mentioned—(i) Jehudah Chajath who was among the large number of Jews expelled from Spain in 1493, and who wrote a commentary on the Kabbalistic work, entitled The Divine Order;[18] and (ii) Abraham Ibn Sabba, who was banished with thousands of his brethren from Lisbon, 1499, and who is the author of a very extensive commentary on the Pentateuch, entitled The Bundle of Myrrh, in which he largely avails himself of the Sohar and other earlier Kabbalistic works.[19]

1463–1494. The Kabbalah, which soon after its birth became partially known to Christians through Raymond Lully, was now accessible to Christian scholars through the exertions and influence of the famous Count John Pico di Mirandola (born in 1463). This celebrated philosopher determined to fathom the mysteries of the Kabbalah, and for this purpose put himself under the tuition of a Jew, R. Jochanan Aleman, who came to Italy from Constantinople. His extraordinary intellectual powers soon enabled Mirandola to overcome the difficulties and to unravel the secrets of this theosophy. His labours were greatly rewarded; for, according to his shewing, [[206]]he found that[20] there is more Christianity in the Kabbalah than Judaism; he discovered in it proof for the doctrine of the Trinity, the Incarnation, the divinity of Christ, original sin, the expiation thereof by Christ, the heavenly Jerusalem, the fall of the angels, the order of the angels, purgatory and hell-fire; in fact the same Gospel which we find in St. Paul, Dionysius, St. Jerome and St. Augustine. As the result of his Kabbalistic studies Mirandola published, in 1486, when only twenty-four years of age, nine hundred Theses, which were placarded in Rome, and which he undertook to defend in the presence of all European scholars, whom he invited to the eternal city, promising to defray their travelling expenses. Among these Theses was the following, “No science yields greater proof of the divinity of Christ than magic and the Kabbalah.”[21] Pope Sixtus IV (1471–1484) was so delighted with it that he greatly exerted himself to have Kabbalistic writings translated into Latin for the use of divinity students.[22] Mirandola accordingly translated the following three works: 1, Menahem di Recanti’s Commentary on the Pentateuch, erroneously called R. Levi de Recineto (Wolf, ibid., p. 10); 2, Eliezer of Worms’ ‏חכמת הנפש‎ de Scientia animae; and 3, Shem Tob Falaquera’s ‏ספר המעלות‎

1455–1522. Not only did Mirandola make the Kabbalah known to the Christians in Italy, but he was the means of introducing it into Germany through John Reuchlin, the [[207]]father of the German Reformation. This eminent scholar,—who is also called by the Greek name Capnion (καπνίον), or Capnio, which is a translation of his German name Reuchlin, i.e. smoke, in accordance with the fashion of the time; just as Gerard, signifying amiable, assumed the name of Desiderius Erasmus, and Schwartzerth, denoting black earth, took the name of Melanchthon,—was born at Phorzheim December 28, 1455. At the age of seventeen he was called to the court of Baden, and received among the court singers in consequence of his beautiful voice. His brilliant attainments soon attracted notice, and he was sent (1473) with the young Margrave Frederick, eldest son of Charles II, afterwards bishop of Utrecht, to the celebrated high school of Paris. Here he acquired, from Hermonymus of Sparta and other fugitive Greek literati, who went to Paris after the taking of Constantinople (1453), that remarkable knowledge of Greek which enabled him so largely to amass the Attic lore and rendered him so famous through Europe. He went to Basle in 1474, delivered lectures on the Latin language and the classics, and had among his hearers nobles of high rank both from France and Germany. He went to Tübingen in 1481, where his fame secured for him the friendship of Eberhard the Bearded, who made him his private secretary and privy councillor, and as such this prince took Reuchlin with him to Rome in 1482, where he made that splendid Latin oration before the Pope and the cardinals, which elicited from his Holiness the declaration that Reuchlin deserved to be placed among the best orators of France and Italy. From Rome Eberhard took him to Florence, and it was here that Reuchlin became acquainted with the celebrated Mirandola and with the Kabbalah. But as he was appointed licentiate and assessor of the supreme court in Stuttgard, the new residence of Eberhard, on his return in 1484, and as the order of Dominicans elected him as their proctor in the whole of Germany, [[208]]Reuchlin had not time to enter at once upon the study of Hebrew and Aramaic, which are the key to the Kabbalah, and he had reluctantly to wait till 1492, when he accompanied Eberhard to the imperial court at Ling. Here he became acquainted with R. Jacob b. Jechiel Loanz, a learned Hebrew, and court physician of Frederick III, from whom he learned Hebrew.[23] Whereupon Reuchlin at once betook himself to the study of the Kabbalah, and within two years of his beginning to learn the language in which it is written, his first Kabbalistic treatise, entitled De Verbo Mirifico (Basle, 1494), appeared. This treatise is of the greatest rarity, and the following analysis of it is given by Franck. It is in the form of a dialogue between an Epicurean philosopher named Sidonius, a Jew named Baruch, and the author, who is introduced by his Greek name Capnio, and consists of three books, according to the number of speakers.

Book I, the exponent of which is Baruch the Jewish Kabbalist, is occupied with a refutation of the Epicurean doctrines; and simply reproduces the arguments generally urged against this system, for which reason we omit any further description of it.

Book II endeavours to shew that all wisdom and true philosophy are derived from the Hebrews, that Plato, Pythagoras and Zoroaster borrowed their ideas from the Bible, and that traces of the Hebrew language are to be found in the liturgies and sacred books of all nations. Then follows an explanation of the four divine names, which are shown to have been transplanted into the systems of Greek philosophy. The first and most distinguished of them ‏אהיה אשר אהיה‎ ego sum qui sum ( Exod. iii, 12 ), is translated in the Platonic philosophy by τὸ ὄντως ὢν. The second divine name, which we translate by ‏הוא‎ He, i.e., the sign of unchangeableness and [[209]]of the eternal idea of the Deity, is also to be found among the Greek philosophers in the term ταυτὸν, which is opposed to θατερὸν. The third name of God used in Holy Writ is ‏אש‎ Fire. In this form God appeared in the burning bush when he first manifested himself to Moses. The prophets describe him as a burning fire, and John the Baptist depicts him as such when he says, “I baptize you with water, but he who cometh after me shall baptize you with fire.” ( Matt. iii, 11 .) The fire of the Hebrew prophets is the same as the ether (αἰθὴρ) mentioned in the hymns of Orpheus. But these three names are in reality only one, showing to us the divine nature in three different aspects. Thus God calls himself the Being, because every existence emanates from him; he calls himself Fire, because it is he who illuminates and animates all things and he is always He, because he always remains like himself amidst the infinite variety of his works. Now just as there are names which express the nature of the Deity, so there are names which refer to his attributes, and these are the ten Sephiroth. If we look away from every attribute and every definite point of view in which the divine subsistence may be contemplated, if we endeavour to depict the absolute Being as concentrating himself within himself, and not affording us any explicable relation to our intellect, he is then described by a name which it is forbidden to pronounce, by the thrice holy Tetragrammaton, the name Jehovah (‏יהוה‎) the Shem Ha-Mephorash (‏שם המפורש‎).

There is no doubt that the tetrad (τετρακτύς) of Pythagoras is an imitation of the Hebrew Tetragrammaton, and that the worship of the decade has simply been invented in honour of the ten Sephiroth. The four letters composing this name represent the four fundamental constituents of the body (i.e., heat, cold, dryness and humidity), the four geometrical principal points (i.e., the point, the line, flat and body), the four notes of the musical scale, the four rivers in the earthly [[210]]paradise, the four symbolical figures in the vision of Ezekiel, &c., &c., &c. Moreover if we look at these four letters separately we shall find that each of them has equally a recondite meaning. The first letter ‏י‎, which also stands for the number ten, and which by its form reminds us of the mathematical point, teaches us that God is the beginning and end of all things. The number five, expressed by ‏ה‎ the second letter, shows us the union of God with nature—of God inasmuch as he is depicted by the number three, i.e., the Trinity; and of visible nature, inasmuch as it is represented by Plato and Pythagoras under the dual. The number six, expressed by ‏ו‎, the third letter, which is likewise revered in the Pythagorean school, is formed by the combination of one, two, and three, the symbol of all perfection. Moreover the number six is the symbol of the cube, the bodies (solida), or the world. Hence it is evident that the world has in it the imprint of divine perfection. The fourth and last letter of this divine name (‏ה‎) is like the second, represents the number five, and here symbolizes the human and rational soul, which is the medium between heaven and earth, just as five is the centre of the decade, the symbolic expression of the totality of things.

Book III, the exponent of which is Capnio, endeavours to shew that the most essential doctrines of Christianity are to be found by the same method. Let a few instances of this method suffice. Thus the doctrine of the Trinity is to be found in the first verse of Genesis. If the Hebrew word ‏ברא‎ which is translated created, be examined, and if each of the three letters composing this word be taken as the initial of a separate word, we obtain the expressions ‏בן רוח אב‎ Son, Spirit, Father. Upon the same principle we find the two persons of the Trinity in the words, “the stone which the builders refused is become the heed stone of the corner” ( Ps. cxviii, 22 ), inasmuch as the three letters composing the [[211]]word ‏אבן‎ stone, are to be divided into ‏אב בן‎ Father, Son. Orpheus, in his hymn on the night, described the Trinity of the New Testament in the words, νὺξ, οὐρανὸς, αἰθὴρ, for night which begets everything can only designate the Father; heaven, that olyphus which in its boundlessness embraces all things, and which proceeded from the night, signifies the Son; whilst ether, which the ancient poet also designates fiery breath, is the Holy Ghost. The name Jesus in Hebrew ‏י״ה״ש״ו״ה‎ the πενταγράμματον yields the name ‏יהוה‎ Jehovah; and the ‏ש‎ which in the language of the Kabbalah is the symbol of fire or light, which St. Jerome, in his mystical exposition of the alphabet, has made the sign of the Λόγος. This mysterious name therefore contains a whole revelation, inasmuch as it shows us that Jesus is God himself, the Light or the Logos. Even the cross, which is the symbol of Christianity, is plainly indicated in the Old Testament, by the tree of life which God planted in the midst of the garden; by the praying attitude of Moses, when he raised his hands towards heaven in his intercession for Israel during the combat with Amalek; and by the tree which converted the bitter waters into sweet in the wilderness of Marah.[24]

The Treatise de Verbo Mirifico is, however, only an introduction to another work on the same subject which Reuchlin published twenty-two years later, entitled De Arte Cabalistica. Hagenau, 1516. This Treatise, like the first, is in the form of a dialogue between a Mohammedan named Marrianus, a Pythagorean Philosopher named Philolaus, and a Jewish doctor named Simon. The dialogue is held in Frankfort, where the Jew resides, to whom the Mohammedan and Pythagorean resort to be initiated into the mysteries of the Kabbalah. The whole is a more matured exposition and elaboration of the ideas hinted at in his first work. [[212]]

The Kabbalah, according to Reuchlin, is a symbolical reception of Divine revelation; and a distinction is to be made between Cabalici, to whom belongs heavenly inspiration, their disciples Cabalaai, and their imitators Cabalistae. The design of the Kabbalah is to propound the relations of the absolute Creator to the creature. God is the Creator of all beings which emanated from him, and he implanted aspirations in them to attain actual communion with him. In order that feeble man might attain this communion, God revealed himself to mankind in various ways, but especially to Moses. This Divine revelation to Moses contains far more than appears on the surface of the Pentateuch. There is a recondite wisdom concealed in it which distinguishes it from other codes of morals and precepts. There are in the Pentateuch many pleonasms and repetitions of the same things and words, and as we cannot charge God with having inserted useless and superfluous words in the Holy Scriptures, we must believe that something more profound is contained in them, to which the Kabbalah gives the key.

This key consists in permutations, commutations, &c., &c. But this act of exchanging and arranging letters, and of interpreting for the edification of the soul the Holy Scriptures, which we have received from God as a divine thing not to be understood by the multitude, was not communicated by Moses to everybody, but to the elect, such as Joshua, and so by tradition it came to the seventy interpreters. This gift is called Kabbalah. God, out of love to his people, has revealed hidden mysteries to some of them, and these have found the living spirit in the dead letter; that is to say, the Scriptures consist of separate letters, visible signs which stand in a certain relation to the angels as celestial and spiritual emanations from God; and by pronouncing them, the latter also are affected. To a true Kabbalist, who has an insight into the whole connection of the terrestrial with the celestial, these [[213]]signs thus put together are the means of placing him in close union with spirits, who are thereby bound to fulfil his wishes.[25]

The extraordinary influence which Reuchlin’s Kabbalistic Treatises exercised upon the greatest thinkers of the time and upon the early reformers may be judged of from the unmeasured terms of praise which they bestowed upon their author. The Treatises were regarded as heavenly communications, revealing new divine wisdom. Conrad Leontarius, writing to Wimpheling on the subject, says—“I never saw anything more beautiful or admirable than this work (i.e., De Verbo Mirifico), which easily convinces him who reads it that no philosopher, whether Jew or Christian, is superior to Reuchlin.” Aegidius, general of the Eremites, wrote to the holy Augustine “that Reuchlin had rendered him, as well as the rest of mankind, happy by his works, which had made known to all a thing hitherto unheard of.” Philip Beroaldus, the younger, sent him word “that Pope Leo X had read his Pythagorean book greedily, as he did all good books; afterwards the Cardinal de Medici had done so, and he himself should soon enjoy it.”[26] Such was the interest which this newly-revealed Kabbalah created among Christians, that not only learned men but statesmen and warriors began to study the oriental languages, in order to be able to fathom the mysteries of this theosophy.

1450–1498. Whilst the Kabbalah was gaining such high favour amongst Christians both in Italy and Germany, through the exertions of Mirandola and Reuchlin, a powerful voice was raised among the Jews against the Sohar, the very Bible of this theosophy. Elia del Medigo, born at Candia, then in Venetia, 1450, of a German literary family, professor of [[214]]philosophy in the University of Padua, teacher of Pico de Mirandola, and a scholar of the highest reputation both among his Jewish brethren and among Christians, impugned the authority of the Sohar. In his philosophical Treatise on the nature of Judaism as a harmonizer between religion and philosophy, entitled An Examination of the Law (‏בחינת הדת‎), which he wrote December 29, 1491, he puts into the mouth of an antagonist to the Kabbalah the following three arguments against the genuineness of the Sohar: 1, Neither the Talmud, nor the Gaonim and Rabbins knew anything of the Sohar or of its doctrines; 2, The Sohar was published at a very late period; and 3, Many anachronisms occur in it, inasmuch as it describes later Amoraic authorities as having direct intercourse with the Tanaite R. Simon b. Jochai who belongs to an earlier period.[27]

1522–1570. The voice of Elia del Medigo and others, however, had no power to check the rapid progress of the Kabbalah, which had now found its way from Spain and Italy into Palestine and Poland, and penetrated all branches of life and literature. Passing over the host of minor advocates and teachers, we shall mention the two great masters in Palestine, who formed two distinct schools, distinguished by the prominence which they respectively gave to certain doctrines of the Kabbalah. The first of these is Moses Cordovero, also called Remak = ‏רמ׳ק‎ from the acrostic of his name ‏קורדואירו‎ R. Moses Cordovero. He was born in Cordova, 1522, studied the Kabbalah under his learned brother-in-law, Solomon Aleavez, and very soon became so distinguished as a Kabbalist and author that his fame travelled to Italy, where his works were greedily bought. His principal works are: 1, An Introduction to the Kabbalah, entitled A Sombre or Sweet [[215]]Light (‏אור נערב‎) first published in Venice, 1587, then in Cracow, 1647, and in Fürth, 1701; 2, Kabbalistic reflections and comments on ninety-nine passages of the Bible, entitled The Book of Retirement (‏ספר נרושין‎), published in Venice, 1543; and 3, A large Kabbalistic work entitled The Garden of Pomegranates (‏פרדס רמונים‎), which consists of thirteen sections or gates (‏שערים‎) subdivided into chapters, and discusses the Sephiroth, the Divine names, the import and significance of the letters, &c., &c. It was first published in Cracow, 1591. Excerpts of it have been translated into Latin by Bartolocci, Bibliotheca Magna Rabbinica, vol. iv, p. 231, &c., and Knorr von Rosenroth, Tractatus de Anima ex libro Pardes Rimmonim in his Kabbala Denudata, Sulzbach, 1677.[28]

The peculiar feature of Cordovero is that he is chiefly occupied with the scientific speculations of the Kabbalah, or the speculative Kabbalah (‏קבלה עיונית‎), as it is called in the modern terminology of this esoteric doctrine, in contra-distinction to the wonder-working Kabbalah (‏קבלה מעשית‎), keeping aloof to a great extent from the extravagances which we shall soon have to notice. In this respect therefore he represents the Kabbalah in its primitive state, as may be seen from the following specimen of his lucubrations on the nature of the Deity. “The knowledge of the Creator is different from that of the creature, since in the case of the latter, knowledge and the thing known are distinct, thus leading to subjects which are again separate from him. This is described by the three expressions—cogitation, the cogitator and the cogitated object. Now the Creator is himself knowledge, knowing and the known object. His knowledge does not consist in the fact that he directs his thoughts to things [[216]]without him, since in comprehending and knowing himself, he comprehends and knows everything which exists. There is nothing which is not united with him, and which he does not find in his own substance. He is the archetype of all things existing, and all things are in him in their purest and most perfect form; so that the perfection of the creatures consists in the support whereby they are united to the primary source of his existence, and they sink down and fall from that perfect and lofty position in proportion to their separation from him.”[29]

1534–1572. The opposite to this school is the one founded by Isaac Luria or Loria, also called Ari = ‏אר״י‎ from the initials of his name ‏האשכנזי ר׳ יצחק‎ R. Isaac Ashkanazi. He was born at Jerusalem 1534, and, having lost his father when very young, was taken by his mother to Kahira, where he was put by his rich uncle under the tuition of the best Jewish master. Up to his twenty-second year he was a diligent student of the Talmud and the Rabbinic lore, and distinguished himself in these departments of learning in a most remarkable manner. He then lived in retirement for about seven years to give free scope to his thoughts and meditations, but he soon found that simple retirement from collegiate studies did not satisfy him. He therefore removed to the banks of the Nile, where he lived in a sequestered cottage for several years, giving himself up entirely to meditations and reveries. Here he had constant interviews with the prophet Elias, who communicated to him sublime doctrines. Here, too, his soul ascended to heaven whenever he was asleep, and in the celestial regions held converse with the souls of the great teachers of bygone days. When thirty-six years of age (1570) the Prophet Elias appeared to him again and told him to go to Palestine, where his successor was awaiting him. Obedient to the command, he went to Safet, where he gathered [[217]]round him ten disciples, visited the sepulchres of ancient teachers, and there, by prostrations and prayers, obtained from their spirits all manner of revelations, so much so that he was convinced he was the Messiah b. Joseph and that he was able to perform all sorts of miracles. It was this part of the Kabbalah, i.e., the ascetic and miraculous (‏כבלה מעשית‎), which Loria taught. His sentiments he delivered orally, as he himself did not write anything, except perhaps some marginal notes of a critical import in older books and MSS. His disciples treasured up his marvellous sayings, whereby they performed miracles and converted thousands to the doctrines of this theosophy.

1543–1620. The real exponent of Loria’s Kabbalistic system is his celebrated disciple Chajim Vital, a descendant of a Calabrian family, who died in 1620 at the age of seventy-seven. After the demise of his teacher, Chajim Vital diligently collected all the MS. notes of the lectures which Loria’s disciples had written down, from which, together with his own jottings, he produced the gigantic and famous system of the Kabbalah, entitled the Tree of Life (‏עץ החיים‎). This work, over which Vital laboured thirty years, was at first circulated in MS. copies, and every one of the Kabbalistic disciples had to pledge himself, under pain of excommunication, not to allow a copy to be made for a foreign land; so that for a time all the Codd. remained in Palestine. At last, however, this Thesaurus of the Kabbalah, which properly consists of six works, was published by J. Satanow at Zolkiev, 1772. New editions of it appeared in Korez, 1785; Sklow, 1800; Dobrowne, 1804; Stilikow, 1818; and Knorr von Rosenroth has translated into Latin a portion of that part of the great work which treats on the doctrine of the metempsychosis (‏הגלגולים‎).[30]

1558–1560. The circulation of Loria’s work which gave [[218]]an extraordinary impetus to the Kabbalah, and which gave rise to the new school and a separate congregation in Palestine, was not the only favourable circumstance which had arisen to advance and promulgate the esoteric doctrine. The Sohar, which since its birth had been circulated in MS., was now for the first time printed in Mantua, and thousands of people who had hitherto been unable to procure the MS. were thus enabled to possess themselves of copies.[31] It is, however, evident that with the increased circulation of these two Bibles of the Kabbalah, as the Sohar and Loria’s Etz Chajim are called, there was an increased cry on the part of learned Jews against the doctrines propounded in them. Isaac b. Immanuel de Lates, the Rabbi of Pesaro, and the great champion for the Kabbalah, who prefixed a commendatory epistle to the Sohar, tells us most distinctly that some Rabbins wanted to prevent the publication of the Sohar, urging that it ought to be kept secret or be burned, because it tends to heretical doctrines.[32]

1571–1648. Of the numerous opponents to the Kabbalah which the Sohar and Loria’s work called forth, Leo de Modena was by far the most daring, the most outspoken and the most powerful. This eminent scholar who is known to the Christian world by his celebrated History of the Rites, Customs and Manners of the Jews, which was originally written in Italian, published in Padua, 1640, and which has been translated into Latin, English, French, Dutch, &c., attacked the Kabbalah in two of his works. His first onslaught is on the doctrine of metempsychosis in his Treatise entitled Ben David. He composed this Treatise in 1635–36, at the request of David Finzi, of Egypt, and he demonstrates therein that this doctrine [[219]]is of Gentile origin, and was rejected by the great men of the Jewish faith in bygone days, refuting at the same time the philosophico-theological arguments advanced in its favour.[33] It is, however, his second attack on this esoteric doctrine, in his work entitled The Roaring Lion (‏ארי נוהם‎), which is so damaging to the Kabbalah. In this Treatise—which Leo de Modena composed in 1639, at the advanced age of sixty-eight, to reclaim Joseph Chamiz, a beloved disciple of his, who was an ardent follower of the Kabbalah—he shows that the books which propound this esoteric doctrine, and which are palmed upon ancient authorities, are pseudonymous; that the doctrines themselves are mischievous; and that the followers of this system are inflated with proud notions, pretending to know the nature of God better than anyone else, and to possess the nearest and best way of approaching the Deity.[34]

1623. The celebrated Hebraist, Joseph Solomon del Medigo (born 1591, died 1637), a contemporary of the preceding writer, also employed his vast stores of erudition to expose this system. Having been asked by R. Serach for his views of the Kabbalah, del Medigo, in a masterly letter, written in 1623, shows up the folly of this esoteric doctrine, and the unreasonableness of the exegetical rules, whereby the followers of this system pretend to deduce it from the Bible.[35]

1635. We have seen that the information about the Kabbalah, which Mirandola and Reuchlin imparted to Christians, was chiefly derived from the writings of Recanti and Gikatilla. Now that the Sohar had been published, Joseph de Voisin [[220]]determined to be the first to make some portions of it accessible to those Christian readers who did not understand the Aramaic in which this Thesaurus is written. Accordingly he translated some extracts of the Sohar which treat of the nature of the human soul.[36]

1652–1654. Just at the very time when some of the most distinguished Jews exposed the pretensions of the Kabbalah, and denounced the fanciful and unjustifiable rules of interpretation whereby its advocates tried to evolve it from the letters of the revealed law, the celebrated Athanasius Kircher, in a most learned and elaborate treatise on this subject, maintained that the Kabbalah was introduced into Egypt by no less a person than the patriarch Abraham; and that from Egypt it gradually issued all over the East, and intermixed with all religions and systems of philosophy. What is still more extraordinary is that this learned Jesuit, in thus exalting the Kabbalah, lays the greatest stress on that part of it which developed itself afterwards, viz., the combinations, transpositions and permutations of the letters, and does not discriminate between it and the speculations about the En Soph, the Sephiroth, &c., which were the original characteristics of this theosophy.[37] The amount of Eastern lore, however, which Kircher has amassed in his work will always remain a noble monument to the extensive learning of this Jesuit.

1645–1676. The wonder-working or practical branch of the Kabbalah (‏קבלה מעשית‎), as it is called, so elaborately propounded and defended by Kircher, which consists in the transpositions of the letters of the sundry divine names, &c., and which as we have seen constituted no part of the original Kabbalah, had now largely laid hold on the minds and fancies [[221]]of both Jews and Christians, and was producing among the former the most mournful and calamitous effects. The famous Kabbalist, Sabbatai Zevi, who was born in Smyrna, July, 1641, was the chief actor in this tragedy. When a child he was sent to a Rabbinic school, and instructed in the Law, the Mishna, the Talmud, the Midrashim, and the whole cycle of Rabbinic lore. So great were his intellectual powers, and so vast the knowledge he acquired, that when fifteen he betook himself to the study of the Kabbalah, rapidly mastered its mysteries, became peerless in his knowledge of “those things which were revealed and those things which were hidden;” and at the age of eighteen obtained the honourable appellation sage (‏חכם‎), and delivered public lectures, expounding the divine law and the esoteric doctrine before crowded audiences. At the age of twenty-four he gave himself out as the Messiah, the Son of David, and the Redeemer of Israel, pronouncing publicly the Tetragrammaton, which was only allowed to the high priests during the existence of the second Temple. Though the Jewish sages of Smyrna excommunicated him for it, he travelled to Salonica, Athens, Morea and Jerusalem, teaching the Kabbalah, proclaiming himself as the Messiah, anointing prophets and converting thousands upon thousands. So numerous were the believers in him, that in many places trade was entirely stopped; the Jews wound up their affairs, disposed of their chattels and made themselves ready to be redeemed from their captivity and led by Sabbatai Zevi back to Jerusalem. The consuls of Europe were ordered to enquire into this extraordinary movement, and the governors of the East reported to the Sultan the cessation of commerce. Sabbatai Zevi was then arrested by order of the Sultan, Mohammed IV, and taken before him at Adrianople. The Sultan spoke to him as follows—“I am going to test thy Messiahship. Three poisoned arrows shall be shot into thee, and if they do not kill thee, I too will believe that thou art the [[222]]Messiah.” He saved himself by embracing Islamism in the presence of the Sultan, who gave him the name Effendi, and appointed him Kapidgi Bashi. Thus ended the career of the Kabbalist Sabbatai Zevi, after having ruined thousands upon thousands of Jewish families.[38]

1677–1684. Whether the learned Knorr Baron von Rosenroth knew of the extravagances of Sabbatai Zevi or not is difficult to say. At all events this accomplished Christian scholar believed that Simon b. Jochai was the author of the Sohar, that he wrote it under divine inspiration, and that it is most essential to the elucidation of the doctrines of Christianity. With this conviction he determined to master the difficulties connected with the Kabbalistic writings, in order to render the principal works of this esoteric doctrine accessible to his Christian brethren. For, although Lully, Mirandola, Reuchlin and Kircher had already done much to acquaint the Christian world with the secrets of the Kabbalah, none of these scholars had given translations of any portions of the Sohar.

Knorr Baron von Rosenroth, therefore put himself under the tuition of R. Meier Stern, a learned Jew, and with his assistance was enabled to publish the celebrated work entitled the Unveiled Kabbalah (Kabbala Denudata), in two large volumes, the first of which was printed at Sulzbach, 1677–78, and the second at Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 1684, giving a Latin translation of the Introduction to and the following portion of the Sohar—the Book of Mysteries (‏ספר דצניעותא‎); the Great Assembly (‏אדרא רבא‎); the Small Assembly (‏אדרא זוטא‎); Joseph Gikatilla’s Gate of Light (‏שער אורה‎); the Doctrine of Metempsychosis (‏הגלגולים‎), and the Tree of Life (‏עץ חיים‎), of Chajim Vital; the Garden of Pomegranates (‏פרדס רימונים‎), of Moses Cordovero; the House of the Lord (‏בית אלהים‎), and the Gate of Heaven (‏שער השמים‎), of [[223]]Abraham Herera; the Valley of the King (‏עמק המלך‎), of Naphtah b. Jacob; the Vision of the Priest (‏מראה כהן‎), of Issachar Beer b. Naphtali Cohen, &c., &c., with elaborate annotations, glossaries and indices. The only drawback to this gigantic work is that it is without any system, and that it mixes up in one all the earlier developments of the Kabbalah with the later productions. Still the criticism passed upon it by Buddeus, that it is a “confused and obscure work, in which the necessary and the unnecessary, the useful and the useless are mixed up and thrown together as it were into one chaos,”[39] is rather too severe; and it must be remembered that if the Kabbala Denudata does not exhibit a regular system of this esoteric doctrine, it furnishes much material for it. Baron von Rosenroth has also collected all the passages of the New Testament which contain similar doctrines to those propounded by the Kabbalah.

1758–1763. Amongst the Jews, however, the pretensions and consequences of the Kabbalistic Pseudo-Messiah, Sabbatai Zevi, and his followers, produced a new era in the criticism of the Sohar. Even such a scholar and thorough Kabbalist as Jacob b. Zevi of Emden, or Jabez (‏יעב״ץ‎), as he is called from the acrostic of his name (‏יעקב בן צבי‎), maintains in his work, which he wrote in 1758–1763, and which he entitled The Wrapper of Books, that with the exception of the kernel of the Sohar all the rest is of a late origin.[40] He shows that (1) The Sohar misquotes passages of Scripture, misunderstands the Talmud, and contains some rituals which were ordained by later Rabbinic authorities (‏פוסקים‎). (2) Mentions the crusades against the Mohammedans. (3) Uses [[224]]the philosophical terminology of Ibn Tibbon’s Hebrew Translation of Maimonides’ More Nebuchim, and borrows the figure of Jehudah Ha-Levi’s Khosari, that “Israel is the heart in the organism of the human race, and therefore feels its sufferings more acutely” (Khosari, ii, 36, with Sohar, iii, 221 b, 161 a); and (4) Knows the Portuguese and North Spanish expression Esnoga.

1767. Whilst the Jews were thus shaken in their opinion about the antiquity of the Sohar, learned Christians both on the Continent and in England maintained that Simon b. Jochai was the author of the Bible of the Kabbalah, and quoted its sentiments in corroboration of their peculiar views. Thus Dr. Gill, the famous Hebraist and commentator, in his work on the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, adduces passages from the Sohar to shew that the Hebrew vowel points were known A.D. 120, at which time he tells us “lived Simon ben Jochai, a disciple of R. Akiba, author of the Zohar.”[41]

1830. Allen, in the account of the Kabbalah in his Modern Judaism, also premises the antiquity of the Sohar. Taking this pseudonym as the primary source of the primitive Kabbalah, Allen, like all his predecessors, mixes up the early mysticism and magic, as well as the later abuse of the Hagadic rules of interpretation, denominated Gematria, Notaricon, Ziruph, &c., which the Kabbalists afterwards appropriated, with the original doctrines of this theosophy.[42]

1843. Even the erudite Professor Franck, in his excellent work La Kabbale (Paris, 1843), makes no distinction between the Book Jetzira and the Sohar, but regards the esoteric doctrines of the latter as a development and continuation of the tenets propounded in the former. He moreover maintains [[225]]that the Sohar consists of ancient and modern fragments, that the ancient portions are the Book of Mysteries (‏ספרא דצניעותא‎), the Great Assembly or Idra Rabba (‏אדרא רבא‎), and the Small Assembly or Idra Suta (‏אדרא זוטא‎), and actually proceeds from the school of R. Simon b. Jochai, while several of the other parts belong to a subsequent period, but not later than the seventh century; that the fatherland of the Sohar is Palestine; that the fundamental principles of the Kabbalah, which were communicated by R. Simon b. Jochai to a small number of his disciples, were at first propagated orally; that they were then from the first to the seventh century gradually edited and enlarged through additions and commentaries, and that the whole of this compilation, completed in the seventh century, owing to its many attacks on the Asiatic religions, was kept secret till the thirteenth century, when it was brought to Europe. To fortify his opinions about the antiquity of the Kabbalah, Franck is obliged to palm the doctrine of the Sephiroth upon passages in the Talmud in a most unnatural manner. As this point, however has been discussed in the second part of this Essay, (vide supra, p. 183, etc.) there is no necessity for repeating the arguments here.[43] Still Franck’s valuable contribution to the elucidation of the Sohar will always be a welcome aid to the student of this difficult book.

1845. A new era in the study of the Kabbalah was created by the researches of M. H. Landauer, who died February 3rd, 1841, when scarcely thirty-three years of age. This learned Rabbi, whose premature death is an irreparable loss to literature, in spite of constitutional infirmities, which occasioned him permanent sufferings during the short period of his earthly career, devoted himself from his youth to the [[226]]study of Hebrew, the Mishna, the Talmud, and the rich stores of Jewish learning. He afterwards visited the universities of Munich and Tübingen, and in addition to his other researches in the department of Biblical criticism, determined to fathom the depths of the Kabbalah. It was this scholar who, after a careful study of this esoteric doctrine, for the first time distinguished between the ancient mysticism of the Gaonim period and the real Kabbalah, and shewed that “the former, as contained in the Alphabet of R. Akiba (‏אותיות בר׳ עקיבא‎), the Dimensions of the Deity (‏שיעור קומה‎), the Heavenly Mansions (‏היכלות‎), and even the Book of Jetzira (‏ספר יצירה‎) and similar documents, essentially differ from the later Kabbalah, inasmuch as it knows nothing about the so-called Sephiroth and about the speculations respecting the nature of the Deity, and that, according to the proper notions of the Kabbalah, its contents ought to be described as Hagada and not as Kabbalah.”[44] As to the Sohar, Landauer maintains that it was written by Abraham b. Samuel Abulafia towards the end of the second half of the thirteenth century. Landauer’s views on the Kabbalah and on the authorship of the Sohar, as Steinschneider rightly remarks, are all the more weighty and instructive because he originally started with opinions of an exactly opposite character. (Jewish Literature, p. 299.)

1849. D. H. Joel, Rabbi of Sheversenz, published in 1849 a very elaborate critique on Franck’s Religious Philosophy of the Sohar, which is an exceedingly good supplement to Franck’s work, though Joel’s treatise is of a negative character, and endeavours to demolish Franck’s theory without propounding another in its stead. Thus much, however, Joel positively states, that though the Sohar in its present form [[227]]could not have been written by R. Simon b. Jochai, and though the author of it may not have lived before the thirteenth century, yet its fundamental doctrines to a great extent are not the invention of the author, but are derived from ancient Jewish sources, either documentary or oral.[45]

1851. After a lapse of seven years Jellinek fulfilled the promise which he made in the preface to his German translation of Franck’s la Kabbale ou la philosophie religieuse des Hébreux, by publishing an Essay on the authorship of the Sohar. And in 1851 this industrious scholar published a historico-critical Treatise, in which he proves, almost to demonstration, that Moses b. Shem Tob de Leon is the author of the Sohar.[46] Several of his arguments are given in the second part of this Essay (vide supra, p. 174, &c.), in our examination of the age and authorship of the Sohar.

1852. Whilst busily engaged in his researches on the authorship and composition of the Sohar, Jellinek was at the same time extending his labours to the history of the Kabbalah generally, the results of which he communicated in two parts (Leipzig, 1852), entitled Contributions to the History of the Kabbalah. The first of these parts embraces (1) the study and history of the Book Jetzira, (2) diverse topics connected with the Sohar, and (3) Kabbalistic doctrines and writings prior to the Sohar; whilst the second part (1) continues the investigation on the Kabbalistic doctrines and writings prior to the Sohar, as well as (2) discusses additional points connected with the Sohar, and (3) gives the original text to the history of the Kabbalah.[47]

1853. Supplementary to the above works, Jellinek published, [[228]]twelve months afterwards, the first part of a Selection of Kabbalistic Mysticism, which comprises the Hebrew texts of (1) The Treatise on the Emanations (‏מסכת אצילות‎), (2) The Book of Institutions (‏ספר העיון‎), by R. Chamai Gaon, (3) The Rejoinder of R. Abraham b. Samuel Abulafia to R. Solomon b. Adereth, and (4) The Treatise entitled Kether Shem Tob (‏כתר שם טוב‎), by R. Abraham of Cologne. These Treatises, which are chiefly taken from MSS. at the public Libraries in Paris and Hamburg, are preceded by learned Introductions discussing the characteristics, the age, the authorship and the sources of each document, written by the erudite editor.[48] May Dr. Jellinek soon fulfil his promise, and continue to edit these invaluable contributions to the Kabbalah, as well as publish his own work on the import of this esoteric doctrine.

1856. Dr. Etheridge, in his Manual on Hebrew Literature, entitled Jerusalem and Tiberias, devotes seventy pages to a description of the Kabbalah. It might have been expected that this industrious writer, who draws upon Jewish sources, would give us the result of the researches of the above-named Hebraists. But Dr. Etheridge has done no such thing;—he confuses the import of the Book Jetzira, the Maase Bereshith (‏מעשה בראשית‎) and the Maase Merkaba (‏מעשה מרכבה‎), with the doctrines of the Kabbalah; and assigns both to the Book Jetzira and to the Sohar an antiquity which is contrary to all the results of modern criticism. The following extract from his work will suffice to shew the correctness of our remarks:—

“To the authenticity of the Zohar, as a work of the early Kabbalistic school, objections have indeed been made, but they are not of sufficient gravity to merit an extended investigation. The opinion that ascribes it as a pseudo fabrication to Moses de Leon in the thirteenth century, has, I imagine, but few believers among the learned in this subject in our own day. The references to Shemun ben Yochai and the Kabala in the Talmud, and abundant internal evidence found in the [[229]]book itself, exhibit the strongest probability, not that Shemun himself was the author of it, but that it is the fruit and result of his personal instructions, and of the studies of his immediate disciples.”[49]

Now the bold assertion that there are few believers among the learned of our own time in the pseudo fabrication of the Sohar by Moses de Leon in the thirteenth century, when such learned men as Zunz,[50] Geiger,[51] Sachs,[52] Jellinek[53] and a host of other most distinguished Jewish scholars, regard it almost as an established fact; as well as the statement that there are references to the Kabbalah in the Talmud, can only be accounted for from the fact that Dr. Etheridge has not rightly comprehended the import of the Kabbalah, and that he is entirely unacquainted with the modern researches in this department of literature.

1857. The elaborate essay on Jewish literature by the learned Steinschneider, which appeared in Ersch and Gruber’s Encyclopædia, and which has been translated into English, contains a most thorough review of this esoteric doctrine. It is, however, to be remarked that the pages devoted to this subject give not so much an analysis of the subject, as a detailed account of its literature; and, like all the writings of this excellent scholar, are replete with most useful information.[54]

1858–1861. A most instructive and thorough analysis of the Sohar appeared in a Jewish periodical, entitled Ben Chananja, volumes i, ii, iii, and iv.[55] This analysis was [[230]]made by Ignatz Stern, who has also translated into German those portions of the Sohar which are called the Book of Mysteries, the Great Assembly, and the Small Assembly, and has written a vocabulary to the Sohar. The recent death of this great student in the Kabbalah is greatly to be lamented. With the exception of the analysis of the Sohar, all his works are in MS.; and it is to be hoped that the accomplished Leopold Löw, chief Rabbi of Szegedin, and editor of the Ben Chananja, who was the means of bringing the retiring Ignatz Stern into public, will publish his literary remains.

1859. As the Kabbalah has played so important a part in the mental and religious development, and in the history of the Jewish people, the modern historians of the Jews, in depicting the vicissitudes of the nation, felt it to be an essential element of their narrative, to trace the rise and progress of this esoteric doctrine. Thus the learned and amiable Dr. Jost devotes seventeen pages, in his history of the Jews, to this theosophy.[56]

1863. No one, however, has prosecuted with more thoroughness, learning and impartiality the doctrines, origin and development of this esoteric system than the historian Dr. Graetz. He, more than any of his predecessors since the publication of Landauer’s literary remains, has in a most masterly manner carried out the principle laid down by this deceased scholar, and has distinguished between mysticism and the Kabbalah. Graetz has not only given a most lucid description of the doctrines and import of the Kabbalah in its original form, but has proved to demonstration, in a very elaborate treatise, that Moses de Leon is the author of the Sohar.[57] Whatever may be the shortcomings of this portion [[231]]of Graetz’s history, no one who studies it will fail to learn from it the true nature of this esoteric doctrine.

1863. Leopold Löw, the chief Rabbi of Szegedin, whose name has already been mentioned in connection with Ignatz Stern, published a very lengthy review of Graetz’s description of the Kabbalah. Though the Rabbi laboured hard to shake Dr. Graetz’s position, yet, with the exception perhaps of showing that the Kabbalah was not invented in opposition to Maimonides’ system of philosophy, the learned historian’s results remain unassailed. Moreover, there is a confusion of mysticism with the Kabbalah through many parts of Dr. Löw’s critique.[58]

We are not aware that anything has appeared upon this subject since the publication of Graetz’s researches on the Kabbalah and Löw’s lengthy critique on these researches. Of course it is not to be supposed that we have given a complete history of the Literature on this theosophy; since the design of this Essay and the limits of the volume of “the Literary and Philosophical Society’s Transactions,” in which it appears, alike preclude such a history. This much, however, we may confidently say, that nothing has been omitted which essentially bears upon the real progress or development of this esoteric doctrine.

Several works, in which lengthy accounts of the Kabbalah are given, have been omitted, because these descriptions do not contribute anything very striking in their treatment of the Kabbalah, nor have they been the occasion of any remarkable incidents among the followers of this system.

Among the works thus omitted are Buddeus’ Introduction to the History of Hebrew Philosophy;[59] Basnage’s History of the Jews,[60] where a very lengthy account is given of the [[232]]Kabbalah, without any system whatever, chiefly derived from the work of Kircher; Wolfs account of the Jewish Kabbalah, given in his elaborate Bibliographical Thesaurus of Hebrew Literature, where a very extensive catalogue is given of Kabbalistic authors;[61] and Molitor’s Philosophy of History.[62]

We sincerely regret to have omitted noticing Munk’s description of the Kabbalah.[63] For, although he does not attempt to separate the gnostic from the mystical elements, which were afterwards mixed up with the original doctrines of this esoteric system, yet no one can peruse the interesting portion treating on the Kabbalah and the Sohar without deriving from it information not to be found elsewhere.

---

[1] Comp. Geschichte der Juden, vol. vii, p. 110, &c. [↑]

[2] Vide Ibn Jachja, Shalsheleth Ha-Kabbalah; Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, vii, 88, &c. [↑]

[3] ‏עוד יש בידינו קבלה של אמת כי כל התורה כולה שמותיו של הקב״ה שהתיבו׳ מתחלקות לשמות בענין אחר כאלו תחשוב על דרך משל כי פסוק בראשית יתחלק לתיבות אחרות כגון בראש יתברא אלהים וכל התורה כי מלבד צירופיהן וגימטריותיהן של שמות.‎ [↑]

[4] This remarkable Treatise was first published by R. Abraham, Vilna, 1802; it was then reprinted with all its faults in Lemberg, 1850. The erudite and indefatigable Dr. Jellinek has now reprinted it in his Auswahl kabbalistischer Mystik, part i, Leipzig, 1853, and the above analysis is from the Introduction to this excellent edition. [↑]

[5] Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr. Hebr. in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, 2677–2680. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, vii, 218, &c. [↑]

[6] Comp. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kabbala, von Adolph Jellinek, part ii, Leipzig, 1852, p. xiii, &c. [↑]

[7] Comp. Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, vol. vii, p. 221, &c. [↑]

[8] This will be seen from the reduction of the respective names to their numerical value by the rule Gematria, viz.:—

‏ל‎ 30 + ‏א‎ 1 + ‏י‎ 10 + ‏ז‎ 7 + ‏ר‎ 200	= 248;
‏ו‎ 6 + ‏ה‎ 5 + ‏י‎ 10 + ‏ר‎ 200 + ‏כ‎ 20 + ‏ז‎ 7	= 248;
and ‏ם‎ 40 + ‏ה‎ 5 + ‏ר‎ 200 + ‏ב‎ 2 + ‏א‎ 1	= 248.

[9] This Epistle of Abulafia has been published by Jellinek in his Auswahl kabbalistischer Mystik, part i. p. 13, &c., Leipzig, 1853, who also gives the above analysis, which we have translated as literally as possible. [↑]

[10] Comp. Jellinek, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kabbala, part ii, p. 60, &c.; Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr. Hebr. in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, Col. 1461–1470. [↑]

[11] Comp. Tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, vol. viii. p. 837. [↑]

[12] Dicitur haec doctrina Kabbala quod idem est secundum Hebraeos ut receptio veritatis cujuslibet rei divinitus revelatae animae rationali.… Est igitur Kabbala habitus anima rationalis ex rectâ ratione divinarum rerum cognitivus; propter quod est de maximo etiam divino consequutive divina scientia vocari debet. Comp. De Auditu Kabbalistico, sive ad omnes scientias introductorium. Strasburg, 1651. [↑]

[13] For the other works of Recanti, both published and unpublished, as well as for the exact date of his literary labours, we must refer to Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr. Hebr. in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, Col. 1733–1737; and to Fürst, Bibliotheca Judaica, vol. iii, pp. 135, 136. [↑]

[14] The MS. of Ibn Wakkar’s Treatise is minutely described by Uri (No 384). It is written in a character resembling the later German Hebrew, is furnished with references to the passages in the Bible and verbal translations in Latin, and contains such clerical blunders as no Hebrew copyist would commit. The above analysis of it is taken from the article in Ersch und Gruber’s Allgemeine Encyklopädie, section ii, vol. xxxi, p. 100, &c., written by the erudite Steinschneider. For the other Kabbalistic works of Ibn Wakkar we must refer to the same elaborate article. [↑]

[15] This ‏ברית מנוחה‎ has been published in Amsterdam, 1648. [↑]

[16] The ‏ספר אמונות‎ consists of eleven parts, subdivided into chapters; and was published in Ferrara, 1557; the Homilies, entitled ‏דרשות על התורה‎ were first published in Venice, 1547, and then in Padua, 1567. [↑]

[17] Botarel’s Commentary on the Book Jetzira was first published with the text of this book and other commentaries, Mantua, 1562; then Zolkiev, 1745; and in Grodno, 1806, 1820. [↑]

[18] The ‏מנחת יהודה‎ which is a Commentary on the ‏מערכת האלהו‎ was published together with it in Ferrara, 1558. [↑]

[19] The Commentary ‏צרור המור‎ was first published at Constantinople, 1514; then in Venice, 1523, 1546, 1566; and in Cracow 1595. Pellican has translated this Commentary into Latin, and the MS. of this version is in the Zurich Library. [↑]

[20] Vidi in illis (testis est Deus) religionem non tam Mosaicam quam Christianam; ibi Trinitatis mysterium; ibi verbi Incarnatio, ibi Messiae divinitates; ibi de pecato originali, de illius per Christum expiatione, de cælesti Hierusalem, de casu dæmonum, de ordinibus Angelorum, de Purgatoriis, de Inferorum poenis; Eadem legi, quae apud Paulum et Dionysium, apud Hieronymum et Augustinum quotidie legimus. Comp. Index a Jacobo Gaffarello, published by Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea, vol. i, p. 9 at the end of the volume. [↑]

[21] Nulla est scientia, quae nos magis certificet de divinitate Christi, quam magia et Cabbala, vide Apologia, p. 42, opp. vol. 1. Basil, 1601. [↑]

[22] Hic libri (Cabbalistorum) Sixtus IV, Pontifex maximus, qui hunc, sub quo vivimus feliciter, Innocentium VIII, proxime antecessit, maxima cura studioque curavit, ut in publicam fidei nostrae utilitarem, Latinis literis mandarentur, jamque cum ille decessit, tres ex illis pervenerant ad Latinos. Vide Gaffarelli in Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraea, appendix to vol. i, p. 9. [↑]

[23] “Is (Jekiel Loanz) me, supra quam dici queat, fideliter literos Hebraicos primus edocuit.” Comp. Rudim. Hebr. p. 3. [↑]

[24] Comp. Franck, Die Kabbalah oder die Religion Philosophie der Hebräer übersetzt von Jellinek. Leipzig, 1844, p. 8, &c. [↑]

[25] Comp. The Life and Times of John Reuchlin, by Francis Besham, p. 102, &c. [↑]

[26] Vide Life of John Reuchlin, p, 108. [↑]

[27] The ‏בחינת הדת‎ was first published in a collection of diverse Treatises, in Basle, 1629–31; and then in Vienna, 1833, with an elaborate philosophical commentary by T. S. Reggio. The arguments against the Sohar are in this edition, p. 43. [↑]

[28] For the other works of Cordovero, both published and unpublished, we must refer to Fürst, Bibliotheca Judaica, vol. i, p. 187, &c.; and Steinschneider, Catalogus Libr. Hebr. in Bibliotheca Bodleiana, col. 1793, &c. [↑]

[29] Pardes Rimmonim = The Garden of Pomegranates, 65 a. [↑]

[30] For a description of the component parts of the ‏ספר עץ החיים‎ as well as for an account of the sundry editions of the several parts, published at different times, we must refer to Fürst, Bibliotheca Judaica, vol. iii, pp. 479–481. [↑]

[31] An analysis of the Sohar, as well as a description of the different editions of it, are given in the second part of this Essay, p. 160, &c. [↑]

[32] Comp. his Resp., ed. Vienna, 1860, p. 24, &c., ‏פסק נגד הרבנים אשר בקשו לעכב הדפסת הזוהר מטעם גזרות המלכות על שריפה התלמוד‎; and again, ibid. p. 26, ‏עוד יש מהם שהוסיפו סרה ואמרו כי העיון בזוהר יביא למינות ולפיכך טעון גניזה או שריפה לבער הקדש.‎ [↑]

[33] This Treatise is published in the collection entitled ‏טעם זקנים‎ by Eliezar Ashkanazi, Frankfort-on-the-Maine, 1854. [↑]

[34] The ‏ארי נוהם‎ was published by Dr. Julius Fürst, Leipzig, 1840. Leo de Modena’s relation to the Kabbalah, the Talmud and Christianity is shown in an elaborate Introduction by Geiger in the ‏מאמר מגן וצנה‎ Berlin, 1856. See also the article Leo de Modena, in Alexander’s edition of Kitto’s Cyclopædia of Biblical Literature, vol. ii, p. 811. [↑]

[35] This Epistle, together with a German translation and learned notes, has been published by Geiger in his collection of sundry treatises, entitled Melo Chofnajim. Berlin, 1840. [↑]

[36] Comp. Disputatio Cabalistica R. Israel filii Mosis de animâ, &c., adjectis commentariis ex Zohar. Paris, 1635. [↑]

[37] Kircher’s Treatise on the Kabbalah is contained in his stupendous work, entitled Œdipus Ægyptiacus, vol. ii, pp. 209–360. Rome, 1635. [↑]

[38] Comp. Jost, Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten, vol. iii, p. 153, &c. Leipzig, 1859. [↑]

[39] Confusam et obscuram opus, in quo necessaria cum non necessariis, utilia cum inutilibus, confusa sunt, et in unam velut chaos conjecta. Introductio in Historiam Philosophiae Hebraeorum. Halle, 1702. Buddeus gives in this Introduction (p. 232, &c.), a detailed description of the Kabbala Denudata. [↑]

[40] The ‏מטפחת הספרים‎ of Jabez was published at Altona, 1763. A thorough critique of it is given by Graetz, Geschichte der Juden, vol. vii, p. 494, &c. [↑]

[41] Comp. A Dissertation concerning the Antiquity of the Hebrew Language, Letters, Vowel-points and Accents. By John Gill, D.D. London, 1767. [↑]

[42] Modern Judaism, by John Allen, p. 67–96, 2nd edition. London, 1830. [↑]

[43] Franck’s La Kabbale has been translated into German, with notes and corrections by the learned and indefatigable Adolph Jellinek; Die Kabbala oder die Religions-Philosophie der Hebräer. Leipzig, 1844. [↑]

[44] The Literary Remains of Landauer, comprising his researches on the Kabbalah, have been published in the Literaturblatt des Orients, vol. vi, p. 178, &c. [↑]

[45] Die Religions-philosophie des Sohar, Von D. H. Joel. Leipzig, 1849, p. 72, &c. [↑]

[46] Moses Ben Schem-Tob de Leon und sein Verhältniss zum Sohar, Von Adolph Jellinek. Leipzig, 1851. [↑]

[47] Beiträge zur Geschichte der Kabbala, Von Adolph Jellinek, first and second parts. Leipzig, 1852. [↑]

[48] Auswahl Kabbalistischer Mystik, part 1. Leipzig, 1853. [↑]

[49] Jerusalem and Tiberias; Sora and Cordova, by J. W. Etheridge, M.A., Doctor in Philosophy. London, 1856, p. 314. [↑]

[50] Die Gottesdienstlichen Vorträge der Juden. Berlin, 1831, p. 405. [↑]

[51] Melo Chafnajim. Berlin, 1840. Introduction, p. xvii. [↑]

[52] Die Religiöse Poesie der Juden in Spanien. Berlin, 1845, p. 327. [↑]

[53] Moses Ben Schem Tob de Leon. Leipzig, 1851. [↑]

[54] Jewish Literature, from the German of M. Steinschneider. London, 1857, pp. 104–122; 240–309. [↑]

[55] Versuch einer umständlichen Analyse des Sohar, von Schuldirektor Ignatz Stern, in Ben Chananja, Monatschrift für jüdische Theologie, vol. iv. Szegedin, 1858–1861. [↑]

[56] Geschichte des Judenthums und seiner Secten, Von Dr. J. M. Jost, vol. iii, p. 66–81. Leipzig, 1859. [↑]

[57] Geschichte der Juden, Von Dr. H. Graetz, vol. vii, pp. 73–87; 442–459; 487–507. Leipzig, 1863. [↑]

[58] Comp. Ben Chananja, Monatschrift für jüdische Theologie, vol. vi, pp. 725–733; 741–747; 785–791; 805–809; 821–828; 933–942. Szegedin, 1863. [↑]

[59] Introductio ad Hist. Philosoph. Ebraeorum. Halle, 1702. [↑]

[60] Histoire des Juifs, English translation, pp. 184–256. London, 1708. [↑]

[61] De Cabbala Judeorum, in his Bibliotheca Hebraea, vol. ii, pp. 1191–1247. Hamburg, 1728. [↑]

[62] Philosophie der Geschichte oder über die Tradition, vol. iii. Münster, 1839. [↑]

[63] Mélanges de Philosophie Juive et Arabe, p. 275, &c. Paris, 1859. [↑]

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